LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Well, it was bound to happen- with the "mandate" from the election, conservative Christian Republican statehouse members are now flexing their muscles and getting ready to legislate 'moral values'.

This New York Times (registration required) article details some of their plans:

"I think people are becoming emboldened," said Michael D. Bowman, director of state legislative relations at Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian advocacy group based in Washington. "On legislative efforts, they're getting more gutsy, and on certain issues, they may introduce legislation that they normally may not have done."

It is on the state level "where most family issues are decided," Mr. Bowman said. And it is there that local advocacy groups hope to build quickly on the momentum from the election when legislatures convene in the new year.

In Texas, conservative Christians are backing an amendment to prevent human cloning, a measure that would also block the kind of cloning used in embryonic stem-cell research. In Georgia, advocacy groups hope to win approval this year of two measures limiting abortion, after redistricting helped Republicans take control of the state legislature. In Kansas, conservatives have won a majority on the State Board of Education, which is expected to introduce changes this spring to the high school science curriculum challenging the theory of evolution. And in Maryland, some black churches have joined with a white Republican state delegate to push for a ban on same-sex marriage.

"People were mobilized during the election and they're still mobilized," said Judy Smith, Kansas state director for Concerned Women for America, which is working to put a measure on the ballot in 2006 to amend the Kansas Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. "We would be stupid not to act now. This is exactly what we had hoped for."

Yeah, right. Here comes the steamroller, America- prepare to return to the Dark Ages.

Electoral victories at the state level have prompted Christian conservatives in many states to renew the fight for causes that had stalled earlier. In Georgia, redistricting helped give Republicans control of the State House of Representatives, said Patricia Chivers, director of government relations for Georgia Right to Life. With the State Senate and the governor's office already controlled by Republicans, the change in the House has given Ms. Chivers new confidence that the state can pass two anti-abortion bills that she said had languished in the House under the Democrats.

One bill requires a woman to wait 24 hours after asking for an abortion, when she is offered information on alternatives, risks and pictures of fetal development, and another requires minors who want an abortion to be accompanied by their parents or guardians. Now, other adults can escort minors.

In Kansas, conservatives now hold 6 of the 10 seats on the State Board of Education. All of them favor teaching theories that compete with or criticize evolution, said Jack Krebs, a member of the State Science Standards Writing Committee and vice president of Kansas Citizens for Science.

In 1999, the Kansas board voted to erase any mention of evolution from the state science curriculum, opening the door for the teaching of creationism. That was reversed in 2001, after three board members who supported the move were defeated in a Republican primary. Kathy Martin, a newly elected member of the board who favors teaching alternatives to evolution, said the board would probably take a different route this time, like introducing the teaching of "intelligent design," a theory that holds that the development of the universe and earth was guided at each step by an "intelligent agent."

"Intelligent Design" is a Christian Trojan Horse designed to destroy scientific inquiry, research, and our lead in it.

State Representative Cynthia Davis of Missouri prefiled two bills for the next session of the Legislature that she said "reflect what people want." One would remove the state's requirement that all forms of contraception and their potential health effects be taught in schools, leaving the focus on abstinence. Another would require publishers that sell biology textbooks to Missouri to include at least one chapter with alternative theories to evolution.

"These are common-sense, grass-roots ideas from the people I represent, and I'd be very surprised if a majority of legislators didn't feel they were the right solutions to these problems," Ms. Davis said.

"It's like when the hijackers took over those four planes on Sept. 11 and took people to a place where they didn't want to go," she added. "I think a lot of people feel that liberals have taken our country somewhere we don't want to go. I think a lot more people realize this is our country and we're going to take it back."

Whose country? The Dominionists? In their minds, 'liberals' (anyone who does not fall into ideological lock-step with them) are Satanic, evil, and must be destroyed. The irony is that this country has not been liberal for nearly 30 years. Who is this 'liberal' straw man they are creating? Is it us?